Blackberry Ballad
DuClaw Brewing Co.

 

 

If you're old enough to recite the better power ballads word for word, then you're old enough for DuClaw's new lemonade- a hoppy sour with blackberry and meyer lemons that's sure to serenade the tastebuds.

Blackberry Ballad hits the glass with a rather peachy golden pour with only a hint of the dark fruit hidden within. As a frothy column rises to the rim, the sharp and citrusy scent of sourness carries a fruitier berry tone along with a back note herbal character. Supple and sweet, the early impressions of fruit juices, wafer and sourdough have a tepid voice on the tongue.

As its soft breadiness lifts, the sourness sets its sights on the tastebuds, carrying with it the blueberry and lemon flavor from fruit additions. along with the underlying and more natural sourness of lime, crabapple, grape, gooseberry and passionfruit. Not to be outdone, there's an herbal bitterness that joins in late with a hoppy taste of currant, hemp, mango and fresh grassiness.

Briskly sour, fruity and trending dry, the beer's sour and bitter interplay is fascination yet distracting with one another. The ale finishes fruity and with that sour-bitter interplay and with an afterglow of a fruitiness that comes across more like grapefruit and plum.